Twilight: Hunters and Vampires
by ParadiseorPurgatory
Summary: What would happen if Bella was a hunter named Sam Winchester? A crossover between Supernatural and Twilight were Sam is now a 17 year old girl hunting werewolves with her brother Dean in the town of Forks.
1. First Sight

**A/N** _For all of you who like Twilight, but think Bella is an annoying insipid charcater, this is the story for you. I decided to replace Bella with my version of Sam Winchester from Supernatural. For this to work Sam is now a 17 year old girl and Dean is 21. - Set between In My Time of Dying and Simon Says, however, spoilers for seasons 1-3. Much of the same dialouge from Twilight has been used. I do not mean to copyright Twilight in any way, I am simply trying to improve the story._**  
><strong>

**First Sight**

_Werewolves are created when an infected human bites another human while they are transformed. This, however, is rare as werewolves in their changed state are usually too focused on feeding than of the idea of creating another werewolf and passing on the gene. Like most shape-shifters they can be killed with silver..._

"Did you find anything useful in Dad's journal?" Dean asked, his voice cutting through my concentration.

I was already trying to tune out the noise of the radio, Led Zeppelin of course, Dean's favourite band. The music was at a level that most people would find distracting even if they weren't focusing on a job. I hate how Dean always makes me do the research, but of course I would never be trustworthy enough to drive his precious car again after I drove it through a wall. In my defence it was necessary. If I hadn't sacrificed his windshield and tail light I probably would have died. And he wouldn't have been able to stop that ghost without my help. I mean shooting Casper in the face, what was he thinking.

"So?" Dean asked again. Always so impatient.

"Nothing we don't already know. All it says is how a human can become infected and how to kill one."

"Nothing about wolves the size of grizzly bears?"

"Zip, zilch, nada."

"Come on, Sam. Sound a little more enthusiastic about this. I mean werewolves are badass, we haven't seen one since we were kids. And a pack a werewolves, I mean that's almost unheard of."

"Okay, Sparky. And you know what, after we kill them, we can go to Disneyland."

"Shut up."

We sat in silence for a while, apart from the music. I stared out the window. In the reflection my skin shone pale next to the dark brown of my hair. I glanced over at Dean, my leather jacket wearing brother. After all these years he was still trying to dress like Dad, even now that Dad was gone. Dean always had so much respect for him. I guess he had to do the work of two kids on that front. Dull sunlight filtered through the window illuminating his face. He looked tired and drawn. Still not sleeping well, Dad's death has really shaken him up.

We were nearing Forks. Everything was slowly shifting into shades of green. Even the light filtered down greenly through the leaves of the thick canopy overhead. My prediction of rain, three hours ago while we were still in Seattle, had come to pass. The constant drizzle made objects look blurred around the edges. I could tell I was going to be bored in this town, but we had a good reason to be here. If we could find and hunt these werewolves we would save a lot of lives.

Already too many people in Seattle and Olympia had died. We managed to track the werewolf activity back to somewhere near Forks. Now the only thing we have to do is find them. It should be a hunter's dream. It's my nightmare.

Settling down for any length of time means I have to go back to school or people will get suspicious. It's alright for Dean he's twenty-one, too old for school. I'm not dumb, on the contrary I'm quite intelligent. It's just that school is so boring. I could be doing much better things with my time.

"Well, here we are." Dean's voice sounded distant, an insignificant noise in the background. I wrenched myself back to the present.

The house itself wasn't much to look at. Two stories, painted an off-white colour. However, it was right on the edge of town next to the forest – the perfect place to lure a werewolf – and it had nice big rooms. The only real problem with it was the one bathroom dilemma. I'd thought that for once, because we were living in a house rather than in a motel, we would have two bathrooms. Dean takes an hour to do his hair. But just like always we'll have to suck it up and get used to it. It would be better than living in a crappy motel room anyway.

I lugged my bags up to my new bedroom. Dean managed to get a fully furnished house, using credit card fraud of course, so I had a bed, desk and for some reason a rocking chair already in my room. I dumped the bag of clothes on the bed, put the duffel with a my sawed-off shotgun, PT-92 9mm handgun, flask of holy water, knife, container of salt and other essential hunting items in the closet and my laptop on the desk. At least this place has wireless internet. I put my clothes away frowning at the heavy winter jackets and shapeless cardigans that would make up the majority of my wardrobe from now on.

Dean ordered food from the one take-away store in town. It was disgusting. I'll have to start doing some cooking again. I haven't cooked a proper meal for years. After tea I went through some of the books we got from Bobby, a fellow hunter and an old acquaintance of our Dad. I say acquaintance because last time he and Dad worked together Bobby threatened to blast him full of buckshot, cocked the shotgun and everything. Thankfully he's softened slightly since then.

I didn't find anything useful and when my eyes started to droop around three in the morning I went to bed. I was starting school tomorrow, yippee. A total of three hundred and fifty seven new kids to meet. God, it's a small school. Some of the schools I've been to have had over two thousand students.

I woke up to a normal dull grey Forks morning. I hadn't slept well, the wind and rain kept me awake. It was still drizzling now. I got ready for school slowly, the start of a sure to be boring day. I had already taken my gun out and was about to slip it into the back of my jeans when I decided I probably wouldn't need it at school. I stowed it regretfully back in my duffel and sighed as I also put back the silver knife I had strapped to my lower leg. I felt naked without any weapons, but it probably wasn't a good idea to take them. It would be very hard to talk my way out of trouble if I got caught with a knife, let alone a gun at school.

I kicked Dean awake so he could get ready. He refused to let me buy a car, or steal one for that matter, and he wouldn't let me drive his so now I was going to be the freak whose older brother drives them around. It was only two miles to school but I was not walking in the rain every day.

Dean dropped me off outside the front office. As he drove away I could see people eyeing off his car. Personally I didn't see what was so special about it. I went into the office. The middle aged red haired secretary was wearing a purple t-shirt. I immediately felt overdressed. I was wearing my new, thick waterproof jacket and one of the hideous cardigans. "Excuse me, I'm Samantha Winchester," I informed her.

"Oh, of course," she said looking up from her magazine. I saw awareness light her eyes, she must have been expecting me. The shiny new toy in this tiny town. She dug through a precariously stacked pile of paper and withdrew a schedule and a map of the school. "I want you to get this slip signed by all your teachers," she said handing me the piece of paper, "return it at the end of the day." She gave me a warm smile and wished me good luck. I left the office without returning her smile and made my way slowly to English.

I gave the slip to the teacher, Mr. Mason. He sent me to a desk at the back without introducing me to the class. It was harder for my new classmates to stare at me in the back, but they still managed. I glared back at their inquisitive eyes until they got the message and turned away. I examined the reading list the teacher had given me. It was fairly basic: Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I had already studied most of the material, about a year and a half ago, at the last school I went to. I wish I'd kept my papers so I could've reused them, but too late now. I tried to remember the essays I'd written while the teacher droned on.

After the bell rang with a nasal buzzing sound, a gangly boy with skin problems and hair as black as an oil slick leaned across the aisle to talk to me.

"You're Samantha Winchester, aren't you?" I'd only enrolled to come here two weeks ago and already the teachers must have told everyone my name. Of course they told the class my name is Samantha. I _hate_ the name Samantha.

"Sam," I corrected him. Everyone within a three-seat radius turned to watch the exchange.

"Where's your next class?" he asked.

I checked the schedule I had shoved in my bag. "Um, Government, with Jefferson, in building six."

There was nowhere to look without meeting curious eyes.

"I'm headed towards building four, I could show you the way..." He was definitely the over helpful type. "I'm Eric," he added

I changed the set of my face from a frown to somewhat of a half smile. "Thanks."

We headed out into the rain which had picked up in pace. A couple of people seemed to be walking close enough behind us to eavesdrop. I hoped I wasn't getting paranoid.

"So, is Forks a lot different than where you used to live?"

"Yeah," I racked my brains trying to think of a place we had been where I could pretend to come from. I decided on Phoenix. "I used to live in Phoenix."

"It doesn't rain much there does it?"

"A couple of times a year," I guessed hoping he wouldn't see through my bluff.

"Wow, what that must be like?" he wondered.

"Sunny," I replied.

"You don't look very tan."

"I'm part albino."

He studied my face apprehensively, and I sighed. Obviously clouds and a sense of humour do not mix. A couple of weeks of this and I'd forget how to use sarcasm. Truth is though, I did get the pale gene. Dean is very tan and so was Dad. Dad always used to say I looked exactly like Mum, only with dark hair. She was apparently pale too.

Eric walked me right up to the door of building six even though it was clearly marked.

"Well good luck," he said as I touched the door handle, "maybe we'll have some other classes together." He sounded hopeful.

I smiled at him vaguely and went inside.

The rest of the morning passed in about the same fashion. My Trigonometry teacher, Mr. Varner, was the only one who made me stand up and introduce myself. I stood up, said my name was _Sam_, repeated the Phoenix lie and sat straight back down. I didn't want to lie too much on my first day.

After the first few lessons I started to recognise some familiar faces in each class. There were always a few braver people who would come up and introduce themselves and ask me questions about how I liked Forks. I mainly lied. The truth was I found Forks really boring. There wasn't much to do here, not that I needed much to do. I should be focused on finding the werewolves. Once they were dead I would be able to get out of here.

One girl sat beside me in both Trig and Spanish. She walked with me to the cafeteria for lunch. She was tiny, a lot shorter than me and I'm only five foot six, but her wildly curly dark hair made up a lot of difference between our heights. I couldn't remember her name, and I couldn't be bothered asking, so I just let her prattle on about lessons and teachers while I tried to tune her out.

We sat at the end of a full table with a group of her friends. She introduced me, but I forget their names as soon as she spoke them. They seemed impressed that she had made friends with a surly stranger so quickly. The boy from English, Eric, waved at me from across the room.

I was sitting there, trying to make conversation with seven strangers, when I first saw them. They were sitting at the far end of the cafeteria, as far as possible from where I sat in the long room. There were five of them. They weren't talking, and they weren't eating, though they each had a tray of untouched food in front of them. I wasn't usually one to stare. I saw a wide variety of strange and scary things every day and I usually managed to hold my surprise in, but there was just something about these five strangers that was making me gawk at them like an idiot.

They didn't look anything alike. Of the three boys one of them was big, muscled like a serious weightlifter, with dark curly hair. Another was taller, leaner, but still muscular, and honey blond. The last was lanky, less bulky, with untidy, bronze-coloured hair. He was more boyish than the others, who looked like they could be in college, or even teachers here rather than students.

The girls were opposites. The tall one was statuesque. She had a beautiful figure, the kind models have, with just the right amount of curves so she didn't look anorexic. Her golden hair gently waved to the middle of her back. The short girl was pixie-like, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was deep black, cropped short and pointing out in every direction.

And yet they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was pale, even paler than me. They must not go out in the sun, not that there was much sun in this rainy place. They all had very dark eyes, despite the range in hair tones. They also had dark shadows under those eyes, purplish, bruise like shadows. It looked like they were all suffering from a couple of sleepless nights, or almost done recovering from a broken nose. Though their noses, all their features, were straight, perfect and angular.

But none of these attributes were why I couldn't look away. I stared so intently at them because all of their faces were beautiful, gorgeous, but also familiar. I know I had never seen them before, I would have remembered such perfect beauty, but they reminded me of someone I had seen before. The memory, however, was just out of my reach.

They were all looking away, away from each other, away from the other students, away from anything in particular as far as I could tell. As I watched, the small girl rose with her tray containing an unbitten apple and unopened soda, and walked away with quick, graceful steps. I stared at her as she dumped her tray and walked out of the cafeteria. There was something familiar about the way she moved too, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I turned back to the others who still sat there, unchanged by the girl's absence.

"Who are they?" I asked the girl next to me whose name I couldn't remember.

She looked up to see who I meant, but probably already knowing from my tone. Suddenly he looked at her, the thinner boyish one. The youngest perhaps. He focussed on my neighbour for a fraction of a second and then his eyes flickered to mine.

He looked away quickly, I turned slower to look back at the girl from Spanish class. In that brief glance his face held nothing of interest. It was merely as if she had called his name and he'd looked up as an involuntary response, already having decided not to answer.

My neighbour giggled in embarrassment as she turned back and gave her attention to me.

"That's Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Jasper and Rosalie Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen, they all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife." She said this under her breath.

Wow, big family, I thought. I glanced sideways at the beautiful boy, he was looking at his tray now, picking a bagel to pieces with long, pale fingers. His mouth was moving very quickly, his perfect lips barely opening. The other three still looked away, but I thought he must be speaking to them quietly.

They all had strange, unpopular names, names that would have suited the people who lived last century or maybe a millennia old demon. Maybe these were the names you were given when you lived in such a small town. I suddenly remembered that the girl next to me was called Jessica, a perfectly normal name. One of my old friends is called Jessica.

"They are ... very nice looking," I regretted the statement as soon as I said it. I really need to keep my thoughts to myself. I shouldn't even be worried about what they looked like, they were just five new people in a cafeteria full of strangers. I shouldn't even be giving them my attention, all too soon I would be moving on from this town and their perfect faces would soon be forgotten.

"Yes," Jessica agreed with a giggle that broke through my internal babble. "They're all together though, Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they live together. It's weird." Her voice held all the shock and condemnation of a small town, but as I thought about it I think anyone would find the situation strange if they didn't understand it.

"Which ones are the Cullens?" I asked. "They don't look related."

"Oh, they're not. Dr. Cullen is really young, like thirty or something. They're all adopted. The Hales are brother and sister; twins. They're the blondes, and they're foster children.

"Aren't they a little old for foster children?"

"They are now, Jasper and Rosalie are both eighteen, but they've been with Mrs. Cullen since they were eight. She's their aunt or something like that.

"That's really nice of them to take care of all those kids like that when they're so young." Personally I thought they were crazy. Seriously who would want to look after five teenagers when you're scarcely older than them yourselves? I have enough trouble looking after Dean, and he's meant to be the adult in our situation.

"I guess so," Jessica admitted reluctantly, "but I think Mrs. Cullen can't have kids though," she added as if that lessened the kindness. I got the impression that Jessica didn't like Dr. and Mrs. Cullen for some reason. With the glances that she was throwing their adopted children I would take a guess that the reason was jealousy.

Throughout our conversation my eyes flickered again and again to the table where the strange family sat. The continued to stare at the walls and not eat.

"Have they always lived in Forks," I asked. It seemed strange to me that such a beautiful family was so alone in the school. It must be their own choice, I don't think any door couldn't be opened by that amount of beauty.

"No," she said in a voice that implied the answer should be obvious. "They moved down here from somewhere in Alaska two years ago."

I suddenly felt sorry for them. Even if the distancing was their choice it was still sad that they were so unaccepted. They reminded me of myself and Dean. When we went to schools for a couple of weeks at a time when we were younger, people always thought we were a bit strange. Dean was usually better accepted than me, he knew how to sweet talk. I was always the weird kid with the black belt in karate and the knife collection, but I knew how to hide that side of me now. So hopefully I wouldn't be avoided at this school, considering I was going to be here for a while.

As I turned to examine the strange but beautiful family again, the youngest, one of the Cullens, looked up and met my gaze, this time with evident curiosity. As I looked swiftly away, it seemed to me that his glance held some kind of unmet expectation.

"Which one is the boy with the reddish-brown hair?" I asked. I peeked at him out of the corner of my eye. He was still staring at me, but not gawking like some of the other students had. He still had a slightly frustrated expression on his face, and that puzzled me. What did he have to be frustrated about?

"That's Edward, he's gorgeous of course," she replied, "but don't waste your time. He doesn't date. Apparently none of the girls here are good-looking enough for him." She sniffed, a clear case of sour grapes. I wonder when he turned her down. I was curious why she had given me that information. I wasn't interested in dating him I was just wondering why the hell this stranger was staring so intently at me.

I glanced over at Edward again. He had turned away now but I could see that the side of his face was lifted up as if he was smiling at Jessica's comment. But that was stupid, as if he could have even heard what she had said from across the crowded, noisy cafeteria.

After a few more minutes the four of them left together. They were all noticeably graceful even the big brawny one. It was unsettling to watch. The one called Edward didn't look my way again.

I sat at the lunch table with Jessica and her friends longer than I would have if I'd been sitting alone. I didn't want to get in trouble by being late on my first day. I'd save the getting in trouble for later in the week. One of my new acquaintances, who reminded me her name was Angela, had Biology with me in the next hour. We walked to class in silence, she was shy.

When we entered the classroom, Angela went to sit at a black-topped lab table just like the ones they have in every school. She already had someone sitting at her desk. In fact all the tables were filled, except one. In the middle of the classroom I recognised Edward Cullen, by his unusual hair, sitting alone next to that one spare seat.

I examined him as I walked down the centre aisle to introduce myself to the teacher and get the slip signed. As I passed him, he suddenly went rigid in his seat. I watched as he sat there, poker straight, hands clenched into fists, tendons visible. Suddenly he looked at me. Only this time it wasn't merely a curious glance, it was a murderous glare. In that second I registered that his eyes were black, not demon black, but still very dark. My hand twitched behind me reaching for the gun that was not there, but I pulled myself together, he wasn't a demon, just a kid. I didn't need to shoot him even if I had my gun. I needed to calm down. Then I accidently walked into a desk. By watching him I hadn't been paying attention to where I was going.

I hurried up to the front of the class and gave Mr. Banner my slip. He gave me a book without bothering about introductions and I walked slowly to that one empty seat beside Edward Cullen. When I sat down I noticed that Edward shifted away from me, leaning as far as possible to the side without falling out of his chair. Seriously what was his problem, I know I didn't smell or anything like that. For one moment I considered taking my hair down to create some kind of barrier between us so I didn't have to watch him sitting rigidly in his chair. I thought better of it, I hate wearing my hair down and I'm not a wuss. I shouldn't care if he was shooting me furious glances, it was his problem not mine.

I tried to concentrate on the lecture Mr. Banner was giving, but it was on cellular anatomy, not the most interesting subject. I took as many notes as I could anyway, but some of my mind was still focussed on the fact that a stranger who I had never talked to, seemed to hate me. Not that it matters, I said to myself again. Really I have to stop caring what these small town nobody's think of me, it's not like I'm going to set up lasting relationships with any of them.

As the lesson drew to a close I glanced over at Edward again. He was still sitting in that same stiff position, hands clenched into fists, the tendons straining against his skin. He had the sleeves of his light coloured shirt pushed up, his arms were surprisingly muscular. He wasn't nearly as slight as he had looked next to his burly brother. His eyes focussed on some point at the front of the classroom, approximately a foot above the teacher's head. The whole time he had never relaxed. Again I found myself thinking what the hell is his problem?

This class seemed to drag on longer than the others. It was probably because my first day at school in nearly two years was almost over, but part of me thought it was because I was waiting for Edward to loosen his fist and move from his stiff position. He never did. He was sitting so still it looked like he wasn't breathing. Seriously, what was wrong with him? Was this his normal behaviour?

I decided I was going to confront him about his strange behaviour at the end of the lesson. If it was about me he was going to hear my displeasure, I might even throw in a few punches. I would like to have thoroughly deserved the hate he seemed to have for me. I really didn't want to gain an enemy on my first day, but I was too curious not to ask. My plan was foiled, however, as soon as the bell rang and Edward rose in one fluid motion and walked swiftly out of the classroom. He was gone before anyone else had even gotten out of their seats. My eyes narrowed as I stared after him, looking at the back of his tall figure as he hurried from the classroom. I rose more slowly.

Now it was time for gym, my most hated lesson. I don't really know why I hate gym. I'm always active when I'm hunting, it takes a lot of energy to fight off demons and other beings of the supernatural every other day, so I stay pretty fit. I guess it's because I'm not very good at ball sports, I haven't got very many co-ordination skills when it comes to any type of sports. It's strange because I'm excellent at fighting and hand to hand combat, I'm very accurate when it comes to shooting guns or throwing knives and I'm good at darts and pool. Just not sport.

"Aren't you Samantha Winchester?" a male voice asked as I was leaving the classroom.

I looked up to see a cute, baby-faced boy, his pale blond hair gelled carefully into orderly spikes, smiling at me in a friendly way.

"Sam," I corrected him, with a slight smile.

"I'm Mike."

"Hi, Mike."

"Do you need any help finding your next class?"

"I'm headed to gym actually, I think I can find it."

"That's my next class too." He seemed thrilled by this fact, though it wasn't much of a coincidence in a school this small.

We walked to class together; he was a chatterer so he supplied most of the conversation, which made it easy for me because I didn't really have to pay close attention. I heard him say something about living in California until he was ten; I wondered why he moved here if he loved the sun so much. This must be one of the rainiest places in the world. He was, however, the nicest person I had met today.

But as we were entering the gym, he asked, "So, did you stab Edward Cullen with a pencil or what? I've never seen him act like that."

Hmm, stabbing him with a pencil wasn't a bad idea. At least then I might have deserved the glares. Instead of admitting this to Mike I decided to feign ignorance.

"Was that the boy I sat next to in Biology?"

"Yes," he said, "he looked like he was in pain or something."

"I don't know what was up. I never even spoke to him."

"He's a weird guy." Mike lingered by me instead of heading to the dressing rooms. "If I were lucky enough to sit by you, I would have talked to you."

I smiled timidly at him again before heading to the girls' locker room. I seemed to have already attracted some unwanted male attention. I didn't really want to have a relationship with anyone here. I was sick of getting involved with people and then having to break it off a couple of weeks later. I didn't like breaking hearts, though somehow it seemed to happen a lot. Relationships also brought back memories of Daniel. Memories I wanted to bury.

The gym teacher, Coach Clapp, found me a uniform but didn't make me dress down for today's class. I was glad, as I watched four volleyball games running simultaneously, that I was not playing too. I remembered that the last time I played volleyball I ended up knocking somebody out with my serve, and they were on my team.

The final bell rang at last. I went to the office to return my paperwork. The rain had drifted away, but the wind was stronger and colder. Even with my thick jacket on I still had to wrap my arms around myself to keep warm.

I walked into the office and froze midstep. Edward Cullen stood at the desk in front of me. I recognised him by his tousled bronze hair. He didn't appear to notice the sound of my entrance. I leaned against the back wall waiting for the receptionist to be free.

He was arguing with her in a low, attractive voice. I quickly picked up the gist of the argument. He was trying to change from sixth-hour Biology to another lesson, any other lesson.

This couldn't be about me. Something must have happened before I entered the Biology room. The frustrated look on his face must be about another aggravation entirely. It couldn't be anything to do with me. The guy didn't even know me.

The door opened again, cold wind gusted through the room, rustling papers on the desk, swirling loose tendrils of my hair around my face. The girl who came in merely stepped up to the desk, placed a note in the wire basket, and walked out again. But in that instant Edward's back stiffened, his hands snapped into fists and he turned slowly to glare at me with piercing hate-filled eyes. For some reason I felt a thrill of fear send a shiver down my spine. The words 'if looks could kill' suddenly ran through my mind and I knew in that moment that his need to change classes was all about me. I just didn't know why. I also couldn't figure out why his stare could trigger such fear in me. I'm a hunter, I shouldn't, no I couldn't, be afraid of anything. One moment of hesitation in my job could cost me my life. But there was just something about this guy that I found totally unsettling. Again I had the feeling that I had experienced this stare, his eyes before. But I knew that was impossible.

His eyes locked with mine for only a second before he turned back to the receptionist. "Never mind then," he said hastily in a voice like velvet, "I can see that it's not possible. Thank you so much for your help." He turned on his heel without another look at me and disappeared out the door.

I stepped up to the front desk, my face white, and handed the receptionist my signed slip.

"How did your first day go, dear?" the receptionist asked me brightly.

"Fine," I lied. She didn't look convinced.

I mulled over what had happened today as I walked to the parking lot. I came up with only one conclusion to explain it. Edward Cullen was just plain weird. I spotted Dean's car at the far end of the now almost empty parking lot. I walked quickly toward it, but my path was blocked by a few boys who must have stayed behind just to admire the car.

"It's a Chevy Impala, the 1967 model." I heard Dean say to the boys.

I gave him a glare as I pushed through the group and got into the car. He got in quickly after me, knowing from my look that I wasn't in the mood stick around and listen to him talk about his car to a bunch of idiot boys.

We drove for a while in silence before Dean asked how my day was. I lied again, this time I was more successful, he didn't pick up that my first day had been far from fine.


	2. Closed Book

**Closed Book**

The next day was better... and worse. It was better because it wasn't raining yet, though the clouds were dense and gray. It was easier because I knew what to expect from my day. Mike came to sit by me in English and walked me to my next class with Chess Club Eric glaring at him all the while. It was nice that he was bothering to help me but it was annoying too. I'm an independent woman and I don't really like accepting help from anyone.

People didn't stare at me quite as much as yesterday. I sat with a big group at lunch that included Mike, Eric, Jessica and several other people whose names and faces I now remembered. Lessons also weren't as boring as they were yesterday so that was a plus.

It was worse because I was still tired. I had pulled an all nighter, calling around to some of the hunters we know trying to find out if any of them had come across a pack of werewolves before. It was worse because Mr. Varner called on me in Trig when my hand wasn't raised, I hadn't been paying close attention to what he was saying and I gave the wrong answer. It was miserable because I had to play volleyball. I ended up giving one of my teammates a bloody nose when I accidently smacked the ball into his face. And it was worse because Edward Cullen wasn't in school at all.

All morning I was impatient, waiting for lunchtime. I wanted to see if he was just having a bad day yesterday or if he really did have a problem with me. If he gave me just one more glare I planned to confront him and demand to know what was going through his head. But, as I entered the cafeteria and glanced over at his table, he was not there. His four siblings, of sorts, sat alone at their table just like yesterday but this time their hostile, beautiful brother was not with them.

Mike intercepted us and steered us to his table. Jessica seemed elated by the attention, and her friends quickly joined us. Like yesterday I tried and failed to join in with their easy chatter. My mind was in another place, thinking again of Edward Cullen. I wanted to believe that his absence was not about me. Maybe he was sick, maybe he was in a fight with someone else at school. But I knew that my fabricated explanations were not true. For some reason he despised me.

Then I realised I shouldn't be dwelling on this fact. So what if one person hated me. I was bound to happen sometime. If people knew what I did with my life I'm sure more people wouldn't like me. For some reason people seem to think that hunting and killing evil creatures is a bad thing – until you save their lives. Again I reminded myself that I would soon be gone from this place, but I was just so curious. I had to know why Edward disliked me so much. Next time he was at school I was going to get answers from him. Curiosity really is my undoing. I just get so obsessed sometimes.

I tried to put all of this out of my mind and listen to the conversation my classmates were having. However, I couldn't stop myself from looking over to the Cullen table, but he didn't appear.

I walked to Biology in a resigned way, knowing I probably wouldn't receive the answers I craved anytime soon. Mike, who annoyingly was taking on the qualities of a golden retriever, walked faithfully by my side. Sure enough when we entered the classroom the desk I shared with Edward was empty. I would not get answers today. Mike followed me to my seat, talking about an upcoming beach trip. I said I would go to try and shut him up. It didn't work. He lingered until the bell rang. I know he was only trying to be nice, but my problems were distracting me today and I just found him extremely irritating. I was going to have to do something about Mike and it involved either me being miserable or having to break a heart. Both were options I really didn't want to choose.

I shouldn't have agreed to the beach trip. At least a lot of other people were going too. Even so the trip was not going to be pleasant. I don't like swimming at the best of times and the weather here is always cold, much too cold for swimming. I haven't been swimming voluntarily for years. A few months ago I dived off a balcony into a freezing pool to save a little girl from a spirit that was trying to drown her. That scenario did not encourage me to go swimming again. But a promise was a promise.

After gym I changed back into my jeans and navy blue hoodie and hurried to the parking lot. I wanted to beat the boys who would surely come to admire Dean's car again. I also wanted to avoid my retriever friend. I succeeded on both accounts. As we waited in the line of traffic slowly moving toward the exit, I noticed the Cullens and the Hales getting into their car. It was a shiny silver Volvo. Probably the most expensive car in the parking lot. I noticed for the first time, before now I had been too mesmerised with their faces to notice anything else, that they were all exceptionally well dressed. It figures, beauty usually always goes with money.

We finally got out of the line and onto the highway. We drove in silence until Dean dropped me off at the supermarket. Apparently I was doing the cooking tonight. He gave me a handful of cash he had won in a poker game the other day. I got out of the car and walked swiftly inside. It had started raining again. I walked up and down the aisles thinking, for once, about our job, but I failed to come to any sudden realisation.

When I finished the shopping I rang Dean and he came to pick me up. At home I began making a proper cooked meal for the first time in ages. I wrapped some potatoes in foil and stuck them in the oven to bake and covered some steak in marinade and balanced it on top of an egg carton in the fridge.

I went upstairs to start my homework – pulling on a dry pair of jeans and a clean button down shirt and laid down on my bed, turning on my laptop. While I waited for the internet to load I started reading the first chapter of Wuthering Heights, the book we were currently studying in English. I was halfway through the first chapter when a beeping distracted me. The internet had loaded and I had an Email. It was from Bobby.

Hey Kid,

Thought you could use this. I also found out some Quileute legends about men turning into wolves that might help to check them out. The Quileute's are a tribe in La Push, the reservation next to Forks. The stories are pretty vague, but if you talk to some locals you might get some useful information. Say hi to your brother for me.

Bobby.

Attached was a map of the area around Forks showing the werewolf sightings from the past week.

"Dean," I shouted down the stairs, "I just got an email from Bobby."

"Coming." Dean yelled back at me.

I heard him rush up the stairs. He sat down on my bed and read the email.

"Who's going to La Push?" he asked.

"I can go soon. One of the guys at school is planning a trip to First Beach. It will give me a good excuse to be there. I don't think impersonating a police officer will work in a place where we hold up a permanent residence."

"Yeah, I know. It just makes our job that much harder."

"We'll just have to work out a way to get answers without lying."

"And how often does telling the truth about what we do work for us?" Dean asked.

"Almost never. But I didn't mean we should tell everyone that we're hunters I meant we should try to get answers without telling people we're the police, or FBI agents, or reporters..."

"Okay, okay. I get the picture."

"I'm going downstairs to finish making dinner. Here," I said handing him the laptop, "you can look up more werewolf lore."

After dinner Dean asked me how school was. I decided to tell him the truth today.

"It was alright. Most of the people are nice, which is a change for me."

"_Most_ of the people?" he asked.

"Well there's just this one kid, he's really weird, and for some reason he seems to hate me." I replied in a rush.

"Did you beat him up?" Dean asked with a knowing look.

"No. For once I didn't do anything."

"Don't worry about it then, so what if one weirdo doesn't like you. Hell, sometimes I don't like you, and I'm your brother."

"Thanks so much, Dean." I said sarcastically. "And I don't really care that much. What I wanted to tell you was that there is something strange about him, and his whole family for that matter."

"Strange as in supernatural strange?"

"Not exactly. There's just something familiar about them, like we've met before."

"I'm sure it's nothing. You worry too much."

"Hey, my gut feelings have saved your ass on more than one occasion."

"Yeah, whatever." He said before getting up and walking into the living room.

I washed the dishes before going upstairs to start my maths homework. Later that night it was finally quiet and I fell asleep quickly.

The rest of the week was uneventful. I got used to not taking my gun to school and fell into the routine of my classes. By Friday I could recognise, if not name, most of the kids at the school. In Gym, the people on my team learned not to pass me the ball and to step in front of me if the other team tried to take advantage of my weakness. I happily stayed out of their way.

Edward Cullen didn't come back to school.

Every day I waited for him to turn up so I could confront him about his strange behaviour. All the other Cullens sat at that same table in the cafeteria, but their brother was never with them. I now joined in with the lunchtime conversation of my new 'friends'. I say 'friends' because I know if they knew who I really was, they would never have anything to do with me. Mostly the talk was centered around the La Push beach trip that Mike had organised to happen in two weeks. The one I had agreed to go to even though I don't like swimming. At least now I had a good reason to be there. If I could find the right people to talk to I may be able to uncover crucial information about the werewolves. Then hopefully we would be able to find them and kill them and I would be able to get out of here. Already this school was beginning to get boring with the same lessons every day.

The only thing that was making me even bother to go to school, apart from helping us to remain inconspicuous, was my curiosity about Edward Cullen. I still wondered if it was me that was causing his unexplained absence. However, I tried not to dwell on this because, for all I knew, he had dropped out of school and I may never see him again.

On Friday as I walked to Dean's car – fewer boys crowded around it now – I felt proud of myself in a way. I had conquered my first week of school without getting into shit once. Apart from Edward everybody seemed to like me and I was able to complete my work to a high standard, despite being on an impromptu road trip for the past year and a half.

My first weekend in Forks was a quiet one. Dean had gone on a hunt and wouldn't let me come with him. He claimed he didn't want me to fall behind in my classes. But I knew him better than that. He could care less if I missed school for a couple of days. He just wanted to prove that he could still go on a hunt and kill the bad guy without me. Some stupid guy macho thing. I let him go. It looked like it was only a D-list ghost. Not that hard to waste when you knew how, find the body and salt and burn the bones. Not the most fun hunt. I wasn't a big fan of digging up graves – hurts the back – so I didn't mind too much that I was missing out.

However, by the end of the weekend I would have given just about anything to have gone with him. It was just so dull here, there was nothing to do. I spent most of the weekend on my laptop or with my nose in dusty old books still looking up werewolf lore. Sooner or later I thought I would have to find something that explained what was going on, but I didn't.

People waved at me as I walked through the parking lot on Monday morning. I waved back to some of them and returned their greetings, but I was in a crappy mood. Dean wasn't back from his hunt yet so I had to walk to school. Thank God it wasn't raining – yet. It was a lot colder this morning though and I half froze, even in my warmest clothes, walking the two miles. In English, Mike took his usual seat by my side. He was really starting to irritate me. We had a pop quiz on _Wuthering Heights_, it was straight forward and very easy.

Even though school was monotonous and some of my classmates were annoying, I was starting to feel comfortable here. It amazed me how quickly and easily I fell into the pattern of organised days. It reminded me of when I was younger and actually used to enjoy this environment even with everybody thinking that I was a freak.

When we walked out of class the air was full with swirling bits of white. I could hear people shouting excitedly to each other. The wind bit at my cheeks and nose making me shiver.

"Wow," said Mike, "it's snowing."

I scowled at the snow that looked so much like fluffy cotton wool building up along the sidewalk and swirling erratically past my face.

"Ugh." Snow. There went my good day.

He looked surprised. "Don't you like snow?"

"No. That means it's too cold for rain." Obviously.

Mike laughed at the disgruntled expression on my face. Then suddenly a squishy ball of dripping snow smacked into the back of his head. We both turned to see where it had come from. I suspected it was Eric who was walking in the opposite direction for his next class. Mike seemed to think so too. He bent over and began scraping together a pile of white mush.

"I'll see you at lunch, okay?" I kept walking as I spoke. "Once people start throwing wet stuff, I go inside."

He nodded, his eyes on Eric's retreating figure.

Throughout the morning, everyone chatted happily about the snow. Apparently it was the first snowfall of the new year. I kept my mouth shut. Sure it was drier than rain, until it melted in your socks.

I walked alertly to the cafeteria with Jessica after Spanish. Mush balls were flying everywhere. I kept a binder in my hands, ready to use as a shield if necessary. Jessica thought it was hilarious, but something in my expression kept her from lobbing a snowball at me herself.

Mike caught up to us as we walked through the doors, laughing, with ice melting the spikes in his hair. He and Jessica were talking animatedly about the snow fight as we got in line to buy food. Out of habit I glanced towards the Cullens table in the corner of the cafeteria. I froze. There were five people sitting there. My lips twitched into a smile. Finally I would be able to confront Edward about his weird behaviour on the first day. I had started to walk over to their table when Jessica reached out and grabbed my arm.

"Hello? Sam? Are you going to get something for lunch?"

I turned to look back at her.

"Are you okay, Sam?" Mike asked me.

"Yeah, fine." I replied. "I'm just not hungry."

I turned again to walk back toward the Cullen table, but thought better of it. I would confront him in class instead. Then he wouldn't be able to escape me. So instead, I walked over to our lunch table and sat down next to Angela. Mike and Jessica soon joined us. I was quiet at lunch, well more quiet than usual, thinking of what I would say to Edward. Twice Mike asked with unnecessary concern if I was feeling all right. I told him I was fine.

I glanced over at the Cullen siblings while still figuring out what I would say to Edward in Biology. They were laughing. Edward, Jasper and Emmett all had their hair entirely saturated with melting snow. Alice and Rosalie were leaning away as Emmett shook his dripping hair in their direction. They were enjoying the snowy day, just like everyone else. However, as I watched them I got the feeling that they were trying too hard to look like everybody else. Again I felt that there was something familiar about this, about them being just a little too perfect that the scene became unreal. But I pushed that thought to the back of my mind, it was insane. I told myself that they were just normal school kids.

Even though I had pushed away that thought, my eyes still examined them closely. I couldn't shake the feeling that from the time I had first laid eyes on them to now, they had changed. As I stared at them I thought their skin looked less pale. Flushed from the snow fight perhaps. The circles under their eyes also seemed much less noticeable. But there was something more. I pondered, staring, trying to isolate the change.

"Sam, what are you staring at?" Jessica intruded, her eyes following my gaze.

At that precise moment, his eyes flashed over to meet mine.

I dropped my head. I wasn't sure, but in the instant our eyes met, he didn't seem to look harsh or unfriendly. Merely curious again, unsatisfied in some way.

"Edward Cullen is staring at you," Jessica giggled in my ear.

"He doesn't look angry does he?" I couldn't stop myself from asking.

"No," she said, sounding confused by my question. "Should he be?"

"I don't think he likes me," I blurted out. Dang it. I wished I hadn't said that, now she would know that I cared if people liked me or not. Which I usually didn't. There was just something about Edward that made me care. I laid my head down on my arm to hide my eyes from her. Maybe that would stop me blurting out my secrets.

"The Cullens don't like anybody... well, they don't notice anyone enough to like them. But he's still staring at you," she said with a smirk on her face.

"Stop looking at him," I hissed. Still angry at myself for discussing this topic with Jessica.

She snickered, but looked away. It felt safe enough to raise my head now that she was not talking about the Cullens anymore.

Mike interrupted us then, he was planning and epic battle of the blizzard in the parking lot after school and wanted us to join. Jessica agreed enthusiastically. The way she looked at Mike left little doubt that she would be up for anything he suggested. I kept silent. I would have to wait at the gym until the parking lot had cleared.

For the rest of the lunch hour I kept my eyes to my own table, planning how I would confront Edward about his strange behaviour. For once I couldn't wait to get to Biology.

I didn't really want to walk with Mike to class as usual, he seemed a popular target for snowball snipers. However, when we got to the door everybody besides me groaned. The rain had started up again, washing all traces of the snow away in clear, icy ribbons down the side of the walkway. I pulled my hood up, secretly pleased. I would be free to go straight home after school today.

Mike kept up a string of complaints on the way to Biology.

Once inside the classroom I saw to my annoyance that my table was still empty. So Edward was coming to school now, but he was still skipping Biology. What a bastard. It was almost as if he knew he was about to get chewed out about his behaviour. I sat down heavily in my chair. Mr. Banner was walking around the room, distributing one microscope and a box of slides to each table. Class didn't start for a few minutes, and the room buzzed with conversation. I pulled out my notebook and started drawing idly on its cover.

I heard the chair next to me move. So Edward had decided to show his face after all.

"Hello," said a quiet, musical voice.

I looked up, stunned that he was speaking to me. He was sitting as far away from me as the desk allowed, but his chair was angled towards me. His hair was dripping wet, dishevelled, even so he still looked like he had just finished shooting a commercial for hair gel. His dazzling face was friendly, open. A slight smile was on his flawless lips, but his eyes were careful. His benign expression took me completely off guard. All last week I was ready to confront him, even to fight him, to find out what his problem was. Now I couldn't even open my mouth.

"My name is Edward Cullen," he continued. "I didn't have a chance to introduce myself last week. You must be Sam Winchester."

My mind was spinning with confusion. Had I made up the whole thing? He was perfectly polite now. I had to speak, he was waiting. But I couldn't think of anything to say.

"How do you know my name?" Oh God, why couldn't I have thought of something a little more intelligent?

His laughter was soft – enchanting.

"Oh I think everybody knows your name, the whole school was waiting for you to arrive since the day you enrolled. It's not often that this school gets a new student.

"No," I persisted stupidly. "I meant why did you call me Sam?"

He seemed confused. "Do you prefer Samantha?"

"No, I like Sam," I said, "but I think Dean must have told the office staff, when he enrolled me, that I prefer Samantha just to annoy me." I tried to explain feeling like an utter moron.

"Oh." He let it drop. I looked away awkwardly.

Thankfully, Mr. Banner started class at that moment. I tried to concentrate as he explained the lab we would be doing today. The slides in the box were out of order. Working as lab partners, we had to separate the slides of onion root tip cells into the phases of mitosis they represented and label them accordingly. We weren't supposed to use our books. In twenty minutes, he would be coming around to see who had it right.

"Get started," he commanded.

"Ladies first, partner?" Edward asked. I looked up to see him smiling a crooked smile so beautiful that I could only stare at him like an idiot.

"Or I could start, if you wish." The smile faded, he was obviously wondering if I was mentally competent.

"No," I said, flushing. "I'll go ahead."

I had done this lab before so I knew what I was looking for. This should be easy. I snapped the first slide into place under the microscope and adjusted it quickly to the 40X objective. I studied the slide briefly.

My assessment was confident. "Prophase."

"Do you mind if I look?" he asked as I began to remove the slide. His hand caught mine, to stop me, as he asked. His fingers were ice-cold, like he'd been holding them in a snow drift before class. But that wasn't why I jerked my hand away. When he touched me that sense of familiarity came back. The same as when I had first seen him and his family. The buried memories almost surfaced, but just as suddenly they faded again, leaving me wondering.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, pulling his hand back immediately. However, he continued to reach for the microscope. I watched him, still wondering, as he examined the slide for an even shorter time than I had.

"Prophase," he agreed, writing it neatly in the first space on our worksheet. He swiftly switched out the first slide for the second, and then glanced at it curiously. "Anaphase," he murmured, writing it down as he spoke.

I kept my voice indifferent. "May I?"

He smirked and pushed the microscope to me.

I looked through the eyepiece eagerly, only to be disappointed. Son of a bitch, he was right.

"Slide three?" I held out my hand without looking at him.

He handed it to me, it seemed he was being careful not to touch my skin again.

I took the most fleeting look I could manage.

"Interphase." I passed him the microscope before he could ask for it. He took a swift peek, and then wrote it down. I would have written it while he looked, but his writing was so clear and elegant that I didn't want to ruin the page with my untidy scrawl. Both Dean and I inherited our Dad's bad handwriting skills. Although both of us can write more decipherable sentences than him. I mean I loved the guy, but he wrote like freaking Yoda.

We were finished before anyone else was even close. I could see Mike and his partner comparing two slides again and again, and another group had their book open under the table.

I glanced over at Edward. He was staring at me, that same look of frustration in his eyes. Maybe I hadn't been imagining his behaviour on the first day. As I watched him I suddenly noticed the change in his face I thought I had seen at lunch.

"Did you get contacts?" I blurted out unthinkingly.

He seemed puzzled by my unexpected question. "No."

"Oh," I mumbled. "I thought there was something different about your eyes."

He shrugged and looked away.

In fact, I was sure there was something different. I vividly remembered the flat black his irises had been the last time he glared at me. The colour had been striking against the background of his pale skin and auburn hair. Today his eyes were completely different, a strange ocher, darker than butterscotch, but with the same golden tone. I didn't understand how that could be unless he was lying about getting contacts for some reason. Again, memories surfaced. Somehow this was familiar, I had seen it happen before. But I still couldn't remember where, when or how. It was insanely frustrating.

I looked down, his hands were clenched into fists again.

Mr. Banner came to our table then to see why we weren't working. He looked over our shoulders to glance at the completed lab, and then stared more intently to check the answers.

"So, Edward, didn't you think Samantha should have a chance with the microscope?" Mr. Banner asked.

"Sam," Edward corrected automatically. "Actually, she identified three of the five."

Mr. Banner looked at me now, his expression was sceptical.

"Have you done this lab before?" he asked.

"Not with onion root," I replied.

"Whitefish blastula?"

"Yeah."

Mr. Banner nodded. "Were you in the advanced placement program at your last school?"

"Yes." It must have been very advanced since I did the same lab two years ago.

"Well," he said after a moment, "I guess it's good you two are lab partners," he mumbled something else as he walked away.

After he left I began drawing on my notebook again.

"It's too bad about the snow, isn't it?" Edward asked. I had the feeling that he was forcing himself to make small talk with me. Paranoia swept over me again. It was as if he heard my conversation with Jessica at lunch and was trying to prove me wrong.

"Not really," I answered truthfully, instead of pretending to be normal like everybody else. For some reason I found it really hard to concentrate when I was talking to Edward. There was just something distracting about him, like the mixture of his beauty and familiarity. I had come into the lesson with the full intent of confronting him about his strange, hostile behaviour and now I was talking politely to him. What the hell is wrong with me?

"You don't like the cold." It wasn't a question.

"Or the wet," I replied.

"Forks must be a difficult place for you to live," he mused.

"You have no idea," I muttered darkly.

He looked fascinated by what I said, for some reason I couldn't imagine. His face was such a distraction, I tried not to look at him for any longer than necessary otherwise I might blurt out something I'll regret.

"Why did you come here then?"

Nobody had asked me that straight out like he did, demanding.

"It's... complicated." I said vaguely, trying to get him off the subject.

"I think I can keep up," he pressed.

I paused for a long moment trying to think of an answer to give him that wouldn't expose Dean and I for what we were. But then I made the mistake of meeting his gaze. Those dark, golden eyes scrambled my thoughts, and I answered without thinking.

"My Dad died," I said.

"Didn't you say he enrolled you in school two weeks ago?"

"Dean's not my father, he's my brother."

"And your mother?" He pressed, obviously trying to get the full story. Again I met his eyes and my mouth moved almost of its own accord.

"Dead too," I replied. "She died when I was six months old." I quickly snapped my mouth shut, I'd already said too much.

"Oh well that doesn't sound so complex. I'm sorry about your parents. How long ago did your father pass away?

"About three months ago"

"So, you don't like living with your brother," Edward summarised, his tone still kind.

"No, it's not that. Well it kind of is. I mean it's more just settling down in the one place, we kind of haven't done that for a while," I said in a rush.

"Did your father want you two to live here if he died?" Edward asked, probing me again.

"My Dad wanted a lot of things," I replied.

"I don't understand," he admitted. "If you hate the rain and your father didn't want you to live here then why did you move here?"

He seemed unnecessarily frustrated by the fact that he couldn't grasp the vague story I was giving him about my messed up family.

"You know, I don't really know you that well. So I'm just going to say that I went on a road trip with my brother, my Dad died and now I live in Forks because my brother wanted to come here." I didn't tell Edward, however, that Dean had wanted to come here so he could waste werewolves.

"But now you're unhappy," he pointed out.

"And?" I challenged. "It's not like I can just leave my brother here by himself. Besides, I've got nowhere else to go."

"It just doesn't seem fair," he shrugged, but his eyes were still intense.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you? Life's a bitch and then you die."

Edward chuckled. "I believe I _have_ heard that somewhere before," he agreed.

"So that's all," I said. Even though it definitely was not all, but I was not going to tell a stranger, who may or may not hate me, anything else about my screwed up life. Edward was still staring at me.

His gaze became appraising. "You put on a good show."

"Excuse me?" I said.

"I'd be willing to bet that you are suffering more than you let anyone see."

"Well you're wrong."

But he wasn't wrong. The truth is I am suffering. My Dad is dead and it seems likely that he made a deal with the yellow-eyed-demon to save Dean's life after we were in that car crash. His soul, the Colt and the one bullet for Dean's life. Now we had no way to kill the demon, Dad's gone and Dean's just not the same anymore. He's suffering even more than me, but he covers it up with smart ass remarks. I can tell that he doesn't think he should have been brought back. He said himself that it's unnatural. According to him what's dead should stay dead.

I still can't believe I tried to pick a fight with Dad on the day he died. I mean I'm trying to make it right now, but it's too little, a lot too late. It's even worse that we know Yellow Eyes has got plans for me and children like me. It's just all crashing down on us. So what do we do, we hunt. If we can't find and kill Yellow Eyes than we find and kill as many other evil sons of bitches as we possibly can.

Edward continued to study my face. "I don't think I am wrong."

I ignored him.

"I thought so," he murmured smugly.

"Why does it matter to _you_?" I asked, irritated. God, this guy is so frustrating. First he seems to hate me for no apparent reason and now he's quizzing me on the little details and sufferings of my life. Seriously what the hell, he's doing my head in.

"That's a very good question," he muttered, so quietly I wondered if he was talking to himself. However, after a few seconds of silence I decided that was the only answer I was going to get.

I sighed scowling at the blackboard. I was starting to feel like throwing some punches in Edward's general direction.

"Am I annoying you?" he asked. He sounded amused.

I glanced at him without thinking ... and told the truth again.

"I'm more annoyed at myself. You seem to be able to read my face really easily." And I was sick of it. Usually I was a great liar. I could impersonate cops and reporters and was hardly ever caught out. There was just something about Edward. For some reason I just found it really hard to lie to him.

"On the contrary I find you quite difficult to read."

"You must be a good reader then," I replied.

"Usually." He smiled widely, flashing a set of perfect, ultra white teeth.

Mr. Banner called the class to order then. I gladly turned away from Edward. I can't believe how completely weird those last twenty minutes were. I didn't get any answers about his hostile behaviour the first day and I all but told him my life's story. I must be going crazy. He'd just seemed so engrossed in the conversation that I had kept going against my better judgement. Now, out of the corner of my eye, I could see that he was leaning away from me again, as far as the desk would allow. His hands were gripping the edge of the table with unmistakable tension.

I tried to appear attentive as Mr. Banner illustrated, with transparencies on the overhead projector, what I had seen without difficulty through the microscope. But my thoughts kept slipping back to Edward and the rest of my problems.

When the bell finally rang, Edward rushed as swiftly and gracefully from the room as last Monday. And, like last Monday, I stayed in my chair, staring after him, wondering. What was it about that boy that was so strange?

Mike skipped to my side and picked up my books for me. I imagined him with a wagging tail.

"That was awful," he groaned. "They all looked alike to me. You're lucky you had Cullen for a partner.

"I didn't have any trouble with it," I said, stung by his assumption. Stupid boys always think that they have to be there to save the day. They think that girls can't do anything by themselves. He looked upset by my sharp tone, so I resisted the urge to hit him and show him how kick ass girls can be. Instead I said, "I've done this lab before though." He brightened again.

"Cullen seemed friendly enough today," he commented as we shrugged into our jackets. He didn't seem pleased about it.

I tried to sound indifferent. "I wonder what was with him last week?"

I couldn't concentrate on Mike's chatter as we walked to Gym, and P.E did nothing to hold my attention, either. Mike was on my team today. He chivalrously covered my position as well as his own, so my thoughts were only interrupted when it was my turn to serve. My teammates all ducked out of the way, which was a good idea, as I was so preoccupied that my serves were even more wild than usual.

The rain was only a mist as I walked to the parking lot, but I was glad to see the Impala there. Dean was finally back from his hunt. I got into the warm car, flinging my bag hard onto the back seat.

"Bad day?" Dean asked.

I glanced over at Edward. "Pretty much."

Dean followed my gaze. "You want me to run him down?"

I laughed. "Tempting, but no. I don't think you'd get away with a hit and run in the middle of a crowded school parking lot."


	3. Phenomenon

**Phenomenon**

When I opened my eyes in the morning, something was different.

It was light. It was still the gray-green light of a cloudy day in the forest, but it was clearer somehow. I realised there was no fog veiling my window.

I jumped up to look outside, and then groaned in horror.

A fine layer of snow covered the yard, dusted the top of Dean's Impala and whitened the road. But that wasn't the worst part. All the rain from yesterday had frozen solid, coating the needles on the trees in fantastic, gorgeous patterns, and making the driveway into a deadly ice slick. Oh God, as much as I hate snow, I hate ice even more. I was going to be slipping over all day.

"What's wrong?" Dean said, leaning on the frame of my bedroom door, towel drying his short brown hair. He was obviously on his way back from the bathroom

"Have you looked outside yet?"

"No why?"

I pulled him over to the window.

"Son of a bitch. You can walk to school today."

"Excuse me, you'd better be joking."

"I'm not taking my car out in that. I only just fixed her up."

"So you care more about your precious car than you do about your own sister." I asked sarcastically.

"Yeah actually I do." He said, smirking as he walked out the door.

"You're a friggin' jerk, you know that. Get dressed your taking me to school or I'll kick your ass, steal your keys and drive myself to school." I called down the stairs after him.

"Fine," he called back, "bitch."

"Jerk," I said again.

After my shower I went down into the kitchen, threw Dean a shirt and some jeans I had snagged for his room on the way, and poured myself some cereal. Dean was on his mobile. I started eating quickly. I knew it was stupid, but I was eager to get to school today. I wanted to see Edward again. I wanted to figure out was up with that guy. Whether he was the hateful boy I met on the first day, or whether he would stay the nice, but intrusive, guy that I had met yesterday. The curiosity was killing me. I hated mysteries that I couldn't solve. That was probably why this werewolf hunt was annoying me so much, we just couldn't work out what was going on.

"That was Bobby," Dean said as I was finishing my cereal.

"What did he want," I mumbled through my last mouthful.

"Well, you know that email he sent the other day?" I nodded. "Yeah, well now he definitely thinks that the werewolves are coming from La Push, and I agree."

"Seriously, again with the plural, one of them isn't enough? What are they congregating now?"

"Yeah, looks like. Here." Dean handed me today's paper. I glanced at the front cover. The headline read 'Local Man Sees Giant Wolves'. I read the story underneath.

I looked up at Dean as I finished. "Two giant wolves spotted in Seattle near the place where another body was found. Are we still sure these things are werewolves? I mean, one, werewolves don't usually hang out together. Two, it's not the right time of the lunar cycle and three, wolves? I mean come on, man. Werewolves don't change into wolves, they just change into crazy people."

"Are you done?" Dean asked, interrupting my rant.

I huffed out a sigh. "Yeah."

"That's what Bobby called about. He found some more information on those Quileute legends and apparently..."

"This fits in with the legend?" I asked incredulously.

"Yeah."

"That's totally nuts."

"I know," Dean said. We both started laughing. "We've got to go interview some La Push locals."

"Ok, well the beach trip is soon."

"Good, but in the meantime I'm gonna try and get a little looksee at the body."

"Why? If we know it's the werewolves... we don't know it's the werewolves?"

"Well this one might not be?"

"You think there's some other creature in town."

"I don't know what to think. But according to Bobby the Quileute wolves are there to protect the tribe." Dean shook his head slowly as if trying to clear it.

I put my hand on his shoulder. "We'll work it out, okay, we will work out what is killing these people and then we will kill it. But I have to get to school. So you might as well go upstairs, put on a suit instead, and get a look at the body after you've dropped me off."

Five minutes later we were in the car driving slowly to school. The ice was so slippery Dean was having a hard time staying on the road. He dropped me off at the gate and I walked slowly through the parking lot.

I was looking at the feet, trying to make sure I didn't fall over, so I didn't realise the van was coming until I heard the brakes squeal. I looked up, startled.

I noticed several things simultaneously. Edward Cullen was standing four cards down from me, on his face was an expression of horror. His face stood out from a sea of faces, all of them frozen into the same mask of shock. But of more immediate importance was the dark blue van that was skidding, tires locked and squealing against the brakes, spinning wildly across the ice of the parking lot. It was going to hit the back corner of an old Ford. Unfortunately, I happened to be standing between the skidding van and the Ford. I didn't even have time to close my eyes.

Just before I heard the shattering crash of the van hitting the other car, something hit me, hard, but not from the direction I was expecting. My head cracked against the icy blacktop, and I felt something solid and cold pinning me to the frozen ground. But I didn't have the chance to notice anything else because the van was still coming. It had curled around the back of the Ford and, still spinning and sliding, was about to collide with me _again_.

A low oath made me aware that someone was with me, and that voice was impossible not to recognise. Two large, white hands shot out protectively in front of me, and the van shuddered to a stop about a foot in front of my face. The hands made a deep dent in the side of the van.

Then the hands moved so fast they were a blur. One was suddenly gripping under the body of the van, and something was dragging me, swinging my legs around until they hit the tyre of the tan car next to me. A groaning metallic thud hurt my ears, and the van settled, glass popping, onto the asphalt exactly where, two seconds ago, my legs had been.

It was absolutely silent for one long second before the screaming began. In the abrupt bedlam, I could hear more than one person shouting my name. But more clearly than all the yelling, I could hear Edward Cullen's low, frantic voice in my ear.

"Sam? Are you alright"

"I'm fine." My voice sounded strange. I tried to sit up, and realised he was holding me against the side of his body in an iron grasp.

"Be careful," he warned as I struggled. "I think you hit your head pretty hard."

I became aware of a throbbing ache centered above my left ear.

"Ow," I said, surprised.

"That's what I thought." His voice, amazingly, sounded like he was repressing laughter.

"How in the..." I trailed off, trying to clear my head, get my bearings. "How the hell did you get over here so fast?"

"I was standing right next to you, Sam," he said, his tone serious again.

I turned to sit up, and this time he let me, releasing his hold around my waist and sliding as far as possible from me as he could in the limited space. I looked at his concerned, innocent expression and was disorientated again by the force of his gold-coloured eyes. Slightly darker than they had been yesterday. My brain was trying to work to link something together, but the whacking it had received was making it move sluggishly.

And then they found us, a crowd of people with tears streaming down their faces, shouting at each other, shouting at us.

"Don't move," someone instructed.

"Get Tyler out of the van!" someone else shouted. There was a flurry of activity around us. I tried to get up, but Edward's cold hand pushed my shoulder down.

"Just stay put for now."

"But it's cold," I complained. It surprised me when he chuckled under his breath. There was an edge to the sound.

"You were over there," I suddenly remembered, and his chuckle stopped short. "You were by your car."

His expression turned hard. "No, I wasn't."

"I saw you... by your car" I still couldn't get rid of the haze that was clouding my brain, I couldn't think properly.

All around us was chaos. I could hear the gruffer voices of adults arriving on the scene. I tried to get my brain to focus on our argument. I knew I was right and he was going to admit it.

"Sam, I was standing with you, and I pulled you out of the way." He unleashed the full, devastating power of his eyes on me, as if trying to communicate something crucial.

"No." I set my jaw.

"The gold in his eyes blazed. "Please, Sam."

"Why?" I demanded

"Trust me," he pleaded, his soft voice overwhelming.

I could hear the sirens now. "Will you promise to explain everything to me later?"

"Fine," he snapped, abruptly exasperated.

"Fine," I repeated angrily.

It took six EMT's and two teachers, Mr. Varner and Coach Clapp, to shift the van far enough away to get the stretchers in. Edward refused his and I tried to do the same, I really was fine, it was just my brain that was moving a little slowly. I had a concussion at the worst and I have had many injuries a lot worse than this. But then Edward told them I'd hit my head and they all but forced me onto a stretcher. I almost died of humiliation when they put the neck brace on. It looked like the entire school was there, watching soberly as the loaded me into the back of the ambulance. Edward got to ride in the front.

His family was looking on from a distance. The expression on their faces ranged from disapproval to fury, but none held a hint of concern for their brother's safety.

As they closed the ambulance doors the loud bang kicked my brain awake. Images that hadn't been processed before now were crashing chaotically around my head. The dents in the van where Edward's hand had been. The inhuman speed he must have used to get to me. The cold skin, the changing eye colour, the graceful movements. And then it clicked. I realised why Edward and his family had seemed so familiar. It was not because I had seen them before. It was because I had seen their kind before.

Memories of a hunt that Dean and I had been on a few months ago with Dad flowed through me. Daniel Elkins, body ripped, mutilated and drained of blood. Dad finding us and the letter Daniel had left for him. That was the first moment we found out about the Colt, a gun that can kill anything, even demons. And then finally...

The ambulance stopped abruptly and the EMT unloaded me. I saw Edward glide through the hospital doors under his own power. I also heard the roar of an engine, a faint hint of rock music and the squeal of breaks as Dean abruptly stopped the Impala outside of the hospital. He raced over to me.

"Sam, hey Sammy, are you okay?" he asked his voice panicked.

"I'm fine, Dean," I muttered as they wheeled my gurney through the doors. They put me in the emergency room, a long room with a line of beds separated by pastel coloured curtains. A nurse put a pressure cuff on my arm and a thermometer under my tongue. Since no-one bothered pulling the curtain around to give me some privacy I decided I wasn't obligated to wear the stupid-looking neck brace and longer. When the nurse walked away I quickly undid the Velcro and threw it under the bed.

There was a flurry of hospital personal and a stretcher containing Tyler Crowley was bought in and put next to mine. Tyler had bloodstained bandages wrapped around his head and looked about a hundred times worse than I felt. However, he was staring anxiously at me.

"Sam, I'm so sorry."

"I'm fine, Tyler. You look awful, are you all right?" As we spoke, nurses were unwrapping his soiled bandages and applying new ones. I could see that Tyler had lots of shallow cuts all over his forehead and left cheek.

Before Tyler could reply I heard Dean's voice coming in loudly from outside of the emergency room.

"Yes, I'm family, okay. I'm her brother. No you can't contact our parents because they're dead. Just let me in God damn it.

The door slammed open and Dean rushed to my bed.

A hospital worker entered after him, limping slightly. Dean must have pushed him out of the way to get to me. I chuckled quietly to myself.

"Excuse me, sir," the hospital worker said timidly, "we need your insurance."

"Here." Dean thrust a card at him without turning away from me. The hospital worker scurried away, afraid he was going to get pushed around again.

"Man, that kid that hit you, I'm gonna rip his lungs out," Dean said loudly.

"He's right behind you," I said. He turned, but before he could start to throttle Tyler I grabbed his shoulder. "But, Dean I'm fine. There isn't gonna be any ripping today." Tyler looked grateful as Dean turned his attention back to me. He pulled me into a hug.

"Sammy, seriously, don't ever scare me like that again or I swear I'll kick your ass." Then Dean, being the kind brother that he is, had to add, "Dude, you look like crap."

"Thanks so much, Dean. That makes me fell a hell of a lot better."

"Sam, I'm sorry," Tyler said again. "I thought I was going to kill you."

"It's okay, Tyler, you missed me."

"How did you get out of the way so fast? You were there, and then you were gone..."

"Um..." I looked up at Dean as the memories came flooding back again. I just couldn't admit to myself what they meant. "Edward pulled me out of the way," I finished.

Tyler and Dean both looked confused. "Who?" said Tyler.

"Edward Cullen, he was standing next to me." I had no idea why I was lying.

"Cullen? I didn't see him... Wow, it was all so fast, I guess. Is he ok?"

"I think so. He's here somewhere, but they didn't make him use a stretcher."

They wheeled me away then, to X-ray my head. I told them there was nothing wrong, and I was right. I didn't even have a concussion. Compared to how beat up I usually got when I was on a hunt, I felt great. I asked if I could leave, but the nurse said I had to talk to a doctor first. So I was trapped in the ER, waiting, harassed by Tyler's constant apologies and promises to make it up to me. Dean was sitting on a chair next to my bed. I had to be careful not to look at him. It was even harder to lie to him than it was to lie to Edward. I still didn't know why I was lying to him, I just needed time to think everything over before I came clean.

I heard someone enter the ER. I looked over to see Edward and I froze. He wasn't the same person anymore.

"Hey, Edward, I'm really sorry," Tyler began.

Edward lifted a hand to stop him.

"No blood, no foul," he said, flashing his teeth. I looked at them closely, I had to be sure. I didn't like what I saw.

"This the guy that saved you?" Dean asked.

"Yeah."

Dean stood up and shook Edward's hand. I flinched as they touched, but I don't think Dean noticed anything unusual. "Thanks for saving my sister, I owe you one."

"So what's the verdict," Edward asked me.

I paused for a second before answering him. "There's nothing wrong with me at all, but they won't let me go." I tried to talk to him as normally as possible. "Why aren't you strapped to a gurney like the rest of us?"

"It's all about who you know," he answered. "But don't worry, I came to spring you."

Then a doctor walked around the corner, and my mouth fell open. He was young, he was blond... and he was more handsome than any movie star I had ever seen. He was pale, though, and tired looking, with circles under his eyes. No he can't work here, I thought. That's not possible.

"I'm Dr. Cullen," he said. "You must be Miss Winchester. How are you feeling?"

I couldn't look away from him, I was in shock.

Dean nudged me. "I'm fine," I said, my voice breathless.

Dr. Cullen walked over to a light board on the wall over my head and switched it on.

"Your X-rays look good," he said. "Does your head hurt?"

"No," I replied.

I shied away as the doctor's cool fingers probed lightly at my skull. "Tender," he asked."

"Not really," I said.

"Well, I guess you can go home then."

"Can't I go back to school?" I really didn't want to be alone with Dean right now.

"Maybe you should take it easy."

"Is he going back to school?" I said, jerking my head in Edward's direction.

"Someone has to spread the good news that we survived," Edward said smugly.

"It sounds like you were extremely lucky," Dr. Cullen said.

"Lucky Edward happened to be standing next to me," I lied.

I started to make my way towards the exit, stopping in front of Edward. "I need to talk to you," I hissed. I was going to make him admit what had really happened.

Edward took a step back from me, his jaw clenched.

I turned to Dean. "I'll just be a second," I said. "You can go wait in the car." Dean left after a long look at me. I hope he didn't realise what was up.

I walked out of the ER with Edward close behind me. As soon as we turned the corner into a short hallway I spun around to face him.

"What do you want?" He asked coldly, sounding annoyed.

Again his personality had completely changed. I made myself reply calmly, I didn't have any weapons on me, I needed to be careful. "You owe me an explanation," I reminded him.

"I saved your life, I don't owe you anything.

"Why did you save me?" I asked. I couldn't think of a reason why he would have. It just didn't make sense, but of course he was not going to give me the answers I wanted.

"I honestly don't know," he said quietly before he turned his back and walked away.

I stared after him. I was so confused. But there was one thing I knew for certain. Edward and his family were vampires. For some reason though, I knew I couldn't tell Dean, not just yet anyway. Again I thought that this whole situation didn't make sense. Edward had saved me. His father, for want of a better word, was a doctor at the local hospital and the rest of his family went to school. Seriously, what the hell?

If Dean noticed my pissed off expression when I got into the car he didn't mention it. We started to drive home in silence when I noticed the suit he was still wearing. Dean had gone to check out a body that didn't seem to have been part of a werewolf attack and now I knew they weren't the only creatures in town. For some reason I felt worried. I didn't want Dean to know about the vampires just yet and I knew that if he had seen the body he would know. Vampire bites aren't exactly easy to miss.

"Um... did you get a chance to see the body?" I asked him.

"No. I had to race back here to make sure you were okay. I didn't get a chance."

I exhaled in relief. Maybe I would get a chance to keep my secret a little bit longer. I didn't really want to hide my new discovery from Dean, but I did want time to investigate. Something was off about the whole Cullen business and I know my brother, definitely a shoot first ask questions later type, and if he thought people were in danger there would be no chance for me to finish my investigation.

Thankfully Dean decided not to go back out today. Instead he decided to turn into a bossy douchebag.

"Alright, I want you to go upstairs and get some sleep."

"Who made you the boss?" I asked scathingly.

"No one. But I am the oldest, and that means I'm always right."

"What? No it doesn't."

Dean glared at me his full lips set in an ugly frown until I turned and slowly climbed the stairs, muttering all the while about what a jerk he was.

I slammed my bedroom door and slumped onto my bed, fully clothed. Even though I wasn't really tired I soon fell asleep. That was the first time I dreamt of Edward Cullen.


End file.
